


Alphabet

by real boye (thisisashittyusername)



Category: RPF - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 03:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13332660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisashittyusername/pseuds/real%20boye
Summary: A collection of fictional experiences following topics of love, and insecurity. [Not necessarily in order.]





	Alphabet

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be following the soulmarks!au trope, but instead of the marks showing up when you meet your soulmate, it just shows up when you're mutually in... like... with someone. also, it deviated from the point its mentioned. as in, it's not mentioned in any other paragraph. so. technically... it's not a highlighted... thing. boo

"You know damn well I wanted to spend my day with you!” E hears his father shout from downstairs. No doubt, by this time, his mother’s already in tears. “I love you! I’m _trying_ to be with you!”

“But you can’t keep me here,” his mother retaliates, and she sobs uncontrollably before she pushes out her next words. “You’ve kept me in this _fucking_ house for years! All I’ve done outside was all for our life in here, I haven’t had time for myself!”

“Time for yourself? _I give you my time,_ ” his father seethes.

“I don’t need your time! I want to be somewhere else! I don’t want to be _here_ anymore!”

A pause.

“Do you even _love_ me?” A breathes, and for all E hates about his father, he knows the sound for what it was. A broken take of breath. He could just imagine the look on A’s face, like it had looked four years ago, when his mother ran rampant and wild and finally, _finally_ free. ‘Your father is a monster,’ his mother had said the night she came back, and with the self-serving hurt he’d seen in her eyes, he had wanted to say, _maybe monsters felt pain, too_.

“I do,” M says, and it’s muffled. She might have hidden her face in her hands, might’ve hid the absolute _yearning_ in her face where there was only despair on her counterpart’s. “I _do_. But I can’t stay here anymore.”

E should have been familiar by now with the pang he feels in his chest. After all, he’s lived under this decrepit, loveless house for years. But he knows there’s more to just the story of a villain and a hero. These are his parents after all, colorful in all their own ways, teaching him everything he should have and could have known. It just wasn’t the same when they were together. E knows about color, about hues, about blacks and whites, and he _knows_ everything this house had ever known was gray.

This wasn’t the story of good versus bad. This was just another tragic love story.

-

He knows exactly what B’s mark is. He’s seen it on the inside of her elbow before, when she had complained about sore muscles almost a month ago. He had only a second to glance at it before B covered it with her hand, kneading in a massage. _But the mark’s already so familiar in my head_ , E thinks, with its intricate details and its soulful colors- how couldn’t it be? He has the same one.

It didn’t mean anything.

“What is love, anyway?” he can’t help to ask in the most cynical tone he could muster.

“What is love, there is love, they is love…” B rambles on nervously, not even trying to make sense. _She knows about my mark_ , he thinks. B laughs, and it’s a shaky, lilting thing. “How is love?”

E can feel the nervous energy radiating from her in waves, but still can’t stop the way his throat constricts, because he knew just how shallow these marks were and even when the whole world romanticized the idea, and he swallows because _why did the universe even have to be this cruel?_

“Romantic love is a social construct made by,” E tries to think. “-whoever the fuck.” He huffs. “There’s absolutely nothing to it,” he pushes to say, even when it feels like his own mark’s burning into his skin. “No to love.”

“Yeah,” B laughs again, this time a little quieter. “Agreed.”

-

It’s not fair, E thinks, finally alone in the sanctuary of his own home. The whiskey wasn’t opened yet, (un)fortunately, E too preoccupied sighing.

The damn marks didn’t mean shit.

 

It had started with J, he remembers. And he’d absolutely loved her. To him, there was no one more brilliant, no one who shone as much as she did, no one at _all_ who would’ve come close to her ‘perfection’. But he was wrong, if there was anything his labored breathing had to say about it.

( _She had cried when he told her about it. Immediately after she had left, he finished an entire box. She was too busy with someone else to cry for him again.)_

It followed with K. K was… well… A lot like him. Maybe _too_ much like him. How hypocritical was it, to leave someone for being too much like you, for being just as withdrawn and just as detached and just as impulsive and just as _fucking foolish-_

( _“You fucked him up real bad,” G had said to him. “You stay away from him.” And E wonders if it could’ve ended another way if he could’ve just… talked to him.)_

And they all had marks with him at the time. Had baptized it with their tears, even _celebrated_ the damn things with smiles and wet kisses and contented sighs. Where was that happiness now? He thinks about the graceful way B’s smile would cover her face when she laughs, remembering the way he’d chuckle in turn, almost automatically, happy and content and-

_Where was that happiness now?_

_It should be somewhere else, far away from me_ , E thinks, bitter, and the screw of the whiskey comes off before he can think to stop it.

-

The day of the party has him more riled up than ever.

The people watch him move into her space (as if he didn’t belong there already), and he feels thoroughly convinced they’re conspiring against him, noting and commenting on his every move. He gets her alone with his manipulatively reasonable words, throws her his gift in private in the most un-romantic way he can, just to forget the choking anxiety of the eyes outside, waiting for him to slip up.

 Even _he_ feels like his emotions are betraying him, opting to sit by her side when the eyes start pinning them again. They’re too close and touch-heavy to be labelled friendship, but he lets the word amplify in his mind to silence the crowd of eyes he can almost feel in his _fucking_ ears, buzzing and chattering and thinking what he doesn’t want to know they’re thinking. That doesn’t stop his traitorous fingers from reaching out to her and squeezing her hand in his, and she seems almost _content_ being beside him, on the floor, pressing back against the couch with their own bottles close by, and it’s a slap of sobriety on his face when P calls on her from the loft. She raises herself slowly, disentangling her hand from his grasp, slowly enough to _hurt_ , and she’s gone, sequestered into the safety of the party host’s room with someone else, talking about positively _anything_.

Even them.

E’s never hated himself as much- _he’d fucking promised he’d never let this get the best of him again_ \- so he grabs the stronger drink and downs shots like he takes breath. When the two girls emerge from the bedroom, he calls out to his best mate, purposefully avoiding passing by B when he climbs up the steps. There’s a certain sway to his gait, but he doesn’t let it stop him from drinking more than he’s used to, loving the way the alcohol burns. It was a welcome distraction.

“I have to tell you something,” he slurs to D, ready to vomit out his feelings and his weaknesses and his _fucking romantic troubles_ \- he knows by heart, sober or drunk, that D was the closest to an anchor he could reach out to now. And his friend just smiles, drinking the shot E passes onto him, despite his earlier rejection, and blinks in waiting.

“Go on,” his friend urges, almost encouragingly.

He doesn’t end up talking about it. The drunk mind had its own plans, and apparently it wanted to spotlight _all_ the grief he’s ever had, including- most especially- his dead sister. His dead sister, who had all the love to give to the world, where E did not. His dead sister, who knew exactly what to do, where E dilly-dallied doing nothing but stupid shit all his life. His dead sister, who wasn’t there anymore, who would never come back except in _fucking dreams, and-_

D grabs hold of him, tight and solid enough to give a sense of security, and E decides in his haze that he likes being handled like this. An anchor indeed, when everything was so confusing and sad and _tiring._ The people, apparently, file in during E’s sadness-induced nap, and they pat him on the back with sympathetic murmurs. Unclear, and maybe still in half a dream, he thinks he sees his friends scrolling through his phone, finding porn, laughing maniacally about it, and even sees B by the doorway, smiling that _fucking_ smile he had no words for- not _wanting_ to have words for- clenching his intestines and his organs like a tightly-wound rope, and-

He drags D into the bathroom and kisses him. For all the hickeys E has given, he’s never had his first kiss, and he feels that in hindsight he might regret giving it away so carelessly- but he appreciates D, who leans forward the second time around, letting E wrap his legs loosely around his waist where he was seated on the countertop. He likes the ‘romantic’ angst of the situation- E’s always fancied the complicated things, like angst- but he remembers all his transgressions and remembers most of all, that _this_ was real life and this was real love- this was a _real_ chance with someone he fucking liked, and it’s enough to give him pause. But he remembers all _love’s_ ever done to him, remembers the fear and anxiety permanently coursing through his veins, remembers the feeling of not being good enough, remembers _love is a fucking joke we should never be weak enough to take seriously,_ and he speaks to D, in a low and almost whining voice, “I can’t feel it.”

The comment earns him a third.

-

In the morning, when he remembers what he’s done, he feels somewhat sick to his stomach. Physical intimacy was one of his weaknesses, and at the same time, a method of comfort in trying times. The emotional turmoil of the past night warranted it (he remembers all the girls he’s given hickeys, the week he’d come back to school after his sister had died), but it was still no excuse. He maybe ruined what friendship he shared with D, and most of all, hurt B (if she found out, that is).

But it wasn’t fair; knowing they’d shared feelings, it was almost like _cheating,_ to have done something like that. E briefly considers telling B about it (“ _Hey, I snogged my best mate during a moment of weakness_ ,”) and decides against it. They’re not married, for Christ’s sake, barely even in a relationship.

_There wasn’t even a title to his name._

_It didn’t fucking matter to her what he did._

-

E honestly wanted nothing more than to stay away from B. There were so many reasons, most of it born from his special brand of self-hate and his lack of believe in this _fucking_ joke of a ‘love’. There was so much that didn’t make sense about it, so much he didn’t even understand or caught sight of yet, and it was enough to steer him away from situations like this. However, it was surprisingly harder to keep himself isolated.

Every step he took away from B only led to two steps forward. E reminds himself then that though the mark never assured a happy ending, it _was_ born for a reason, and this was exactly it. Everything E thought, everything he did to set himself apart, didn’t even matter anymore. He would always gravitate toward B’s space.

He would always come to where he thought was home.

-

So many people always came to B for help. If E had any less respect for religion, he would’ve likened B to the Messiah, the Savior of humankind always praised and honored in the gospels. B, much like the religious figure, always had time for the people, always had something to advise and to suggest, and when even those ran out on her tongue, she always had her touch and her warmth to offer as recompense.

It was B’s strength as well as her weakness, E thinks.

Even now, in the dimly lit coffee shop, they sit beside each other. But B’s hands are folded into herself- where it would’ve normally been open and welcoming- her brow creased and her eyes focused somewhere else. It’s only when E clears his throat that B bristles, shooting him a surprised glance.

“Hey,” E starts, flashing her a smile he hopes looks gentle enough. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“It’s just…” B pursing her lips, “I’m worried about…” and she breaks off, a genuinely worried expression on her face.

E thinks of what to say- he’s been on this rodeo before- when suddenly the person across him on the table speaks up. “You’re too invested,” P says, simple enough that E couldn’t even decide whether to thank her or strangle her for her bluntness. “You can’t keep being everyone’s strength.”

P’s eyes darts toward E’s for a fraction of a second. “You heard E’s story. It’s just like his friend’s. You carry all this emotional baggage, and suddenly you have no time for yourself.”

“But they’re my friends,” B says, like it was simple enough to understand.

“She makes sense,” E speaks up, ready to defend P. For once, his friend’s made an unfailing point; better, even, then what B had to say, he thinks. “Maybe it’s why you’re always so emp-”

And he stops himself. Because she trusted him with this. He’s not going to use her weaknesses just to prove a point. He’s made that mistake before. But B’s already looking away, looking everywhere else but the side of the table where they were, and she mumbles to herself, “-but that’s who I am.” She doesn’t speak again about the serious topics plaguing her; instead, she talks about trivial things, like needing to pee and jokes and fanfictions and leaving-

She doesn’t notice when E looks at her, almost adoringly as it was pained. He has time to screw his eyes shut, has time to let out a breath, and revert back to everything he’s ever known his whole life. Resentment. There could have even been a sense of desperation when he thinks to himself, _how can you look at me when you look after everyone else?_

He looks away. _I will not compete with them._


End file.
